Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Improve your Productivity
Firefox is the browser of dreams for many people (myself included). One of the great perks of Firefox is that there are tons of extensions that enhance the functionality of the browser. With over 1500 extensions in existence, there are many that can be used to improve your productivity. The following is my take on the top 10 extensions that will keep you focused, reduce distractions, streamline your daily work flow, and improve your productivity.
Customize Google is a very robust extension that lets you customize many features of the services provided by Google. Customize Google lets you block advertisements on pretty much any Google page (including Gmail). It remaps Google Images search results to point directly at the images (no longer will you need to click through the originating site). Customize Google lets you add links from other search engines directly into your search results. It can also block Google click tracking and allows you to connect to Google Calendar and Gmail securely (https). Give it a try, you won’t be sorry.
2. Gspace
Gspace is a content management extension that lets you turn your Gmail account into an online mass storage device. Gspace integrates nicely into your browser and lets you drag and drop files into Gmail for backup or storage purposes without interrupting your work flow. If you use Gspace, I recommend adding a tag in Gmail to your files so they can be filtered and accessed quickly. The following is the description of Gspace from its homepage: “Gspace turns the 2GB of your Gmail account into free online storage. With Gspace you can manage unlimited Gmail accounts to store all type of files within its simple, user friendly interface. Listen to your favorite stored music directly from your Gspace, view your collections of pictures and manage your Gdrive files as well. Download Gspace now and transfer files between your computer and Gspace at anytime, from everywhere!”
3. Flashgot/DownThemAll
The default download manager built into Firefox is very handy; however, there are many occasions that you’ll find that you need more flexibility with your downloads. This is where Flashgot or DownThemAll comes in handy. The features of Flashgot and DownThemAll have their differences; however, they generally provide finer-grained control of your downloads. My personal preference is Flashgot. I recommend trying at least one of them.
4. Greasemonkey + Stylish + Ad blocking per Gozer
Greasemonkey is an extension that lets you add scripts that alter the web pages you visit. Using Greasemonkey and Stylish and Ad blocking per Gozer together will block pretty much every advertisement from any Web site you visit.
5. Flashblock
The Flashblock extension by default blocks flash from playing when a Web page is first opened. Most (distracting) advertisements are written using flash. Flashblock is particularly useful because it replaces the flash from a Web site with a “play” button so you can watch the flash if it something useful (like a video at Youtube) and leave it blocked if it is an advertisement.
Download Statusbar manages your downloads in the status bar instead of the Firefox Download Manager. I find that the download manager that comes with Firefox to be very intrusive. Download manager tucks your download progress bars into the generally unused status bar of Firefox. This lets you download care-free without the Firefox Download Manager popping up and interrupting you.
7. URL Fixer
URL fixer will replace the common typos you enter when typing a Web site into the URL bar (i.e., http://www.lifehack.rog, htp://lifehack.org). The auto correct feature of URL fixer is very helpful. “[URL Fixer] will correct common misspellings of .com, .net, .org, .edu, .gov, and .mil, as well as the protocol (http:, https:). It will also correct errors in country code TLDS such as .com.XX, .net.XX, and .org.XX.”
8. Tab Mix Plus
Many of the features of Tab Mix Plus were incorporated into the release of Firefox 2. However, Tab Mix Plus allows you to add finer-grained control of your tabs. The following is a description of Tab Mix Plus: “Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.”
9. Scrapbook
Scrapbook is extremely useful for researchers and students. Scrapbook saves blurbs from Web pages to your hard drive along with the URL of the originating Web site. It allows you to organize and categorize your blurbs in a format similar to your bookmarks so that when it comes to creating a bibliography or works cited, you won’t waste any time.
10. IE Tab
I find myself using this extension less and less as more Web developers code their Web sites following standards. However, occasionally you will find it necessary to open a Web site using Internet Explorer in order for it to render correctly. Rather than taking the time to launch a separate browser, just choose “View Page in IE tab” and an Internet Explorer tab opens in Firefox. This is very useful if you like to have multiple Gmail accounts open and active on one computer.
That’s my take on the extensions that will improve your productivity. Like I previously mentioned, there are tons of Firefox extensions. What extension didn’t I mention that you can’t live without? Please tell us about your favorite productivity-enhancing Firefox extension in the comments.
Author: Kyle Pott
Posted: Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Tags: extensions, firefox, productivity, technology 
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March 7th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Re: Scrapbook - “so that when it comes to creating a bibliography or works cited, you won’t waste any time.”
What works even better is Zotero, a free Firefox extension that makes it easy to collect, manage, and cite your research sources. You can compare it to EndNote, a frequently used program to create research bibliographies, but Zotero is free and works within your browser. Not only can you create notes from webpages, save their location and export them in a formatted bibliography style it also works nicely with Google Books and Google Scholar!
March 7th, 2007 at 10:28 am
Thanks for this great list and pointing my attention to a few addons I had not noticed yet!
Re: Scrapbook - “so that when it comes to creating a bibliography or works cited, you won’t waste any time.”
What works even better is Zotero, a free Firefox extension that makes it easy to collect, manage, and cite your research sources. You can compare it to EndNote, a frequently used program to create research bibliographies, but Zotero is free and works within your browser. Not only can you create notes from webpages, save their location and export them in a formatted bibliography style it also works nicely with Google Books and Google Scholar!
March 7th, 2007 at 11:23 am
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March 7th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
NoScript and CookieSafe are must haves!!!
March 7th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Firefox has huge memory leaks when it comes to extentions. I have a bunch that realy assist me in web development but I have to keep deativating them because I FF starts using more than 300MB. Same thing happens whith memory leaks caused by poor javascript implementation. For example if I keep google map tabs open memory usage goes up, and up, and up…
It is disappointing to read all these articles about firefox extentions from people that do not know exactly what they are talking about :-/
March 7th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
@dissatisfied - As someone who has developed several Firefox extensions, I hope you can remove me from the, “don’t know exactly what they are talking about” category.
You do have a compelling argument…while some poorly coded/tested extensions can cause memory leaks, most extensions do not “leak” memory. Memory usage tends to increase when using extensions — that’s just the nature of running more complex applications. However, extreme memory leaks like you describe are rare.
Speaking in specifics about my article, which extension(s) do you use that causes a memory leak? I have been using all 10 for quite some time and have never had any problems.
March 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
How to share file with friends using Gspace without giving out the account login and password?